Test Setup

Once installed, it becomes apparent how tall the Vengeance really is. Make sure your DIMM slots are clear and there is enough space, especially next to the CPU cooler.

Performance & Overclocking

Taking a quick look at the SPD programming we can clearly see that Corsair has the XMP 1600 MHz profile in there twice. While this will by no means affect your performance in any way, it is certainly a bit strange.

Overclocking the Corsair Vengeance was a fairly straight forward task. Our kit easily booted at 1600 MHz CL9 and 1.5 V without any issues and was stable as it should be. Even at this voltage setting the memory managed reach 1820 MHz. The next step meant slowly raising the voltage up to 2.0 V to see if this would help to push the kit even higher. At this point it became clear that the three modules were completely unimpressed by any increase of voltage. No matter what I set it at, I was not able to push things higher. While a "mere" 220 MHz overclock does not seem like much, it is quite respectable for a 12 GB kit. Especially if it manages that at JEDEC voltage.

Relaxing the timings slightly to 9-10-9-27, the kit even worked flawlessly at 2000 MHz and - once again regardless of the amount of voltage applied - an impressive 2040 MHz was the most I was able to tickle out of them at this end of the spectrum.

Next, I turned my focus to the low latency aspect. Trying to boot the kit at CL5-5-5-15 proved impossible, so I pushed for CL6 at which point the system was stable when starting at 1066 MHz. A setting of 1333 MHz would yield an unresponsive computer, so I worked my way up at 1.5V at first, where the maximum was 1200 MHz. An increase to voltage gave very little performance increase, as the memory maxed out at 1232 MHz no matter how much voltage I applied.

At CL7-7-7-21 a very similar picture developed. Right out of the gate - at 1.5 V I was able to push to 1428 MHz ending up with a mere 8 MHz more at most when using more voltage resulting in a speed of 1436 MHz. At this point it was safe to say that the Voltage graph would look very clean with mostly straight lines at each CL setting.

Last, but not least the memory was booted at CL8-8-8-24 and I set the system straight to 1600 MHz. The test system booted right away and worked flawlessly at this point, which means that even though Corsair rates the 12 GB kit for CL9, you can expect to push the timings slightly in the right direction while staying at 1.5V. Once again, an increase in voltage resulted in no change at all and the memory maxed out at 1640 MHz and CL8.

Voltage Scaling

As you can see the lines in our voltage graph are basically straight. No matter how much voltage you apply, the memory will not allow you to push it higher. Remember, these results have been achieved with our specific kit and your experience may vary.